Archetypal patterns endure because they give expression to perennial dilemmas submerged in the collective unconscious. Having examined more than 300 novels by both major and minor women writers over three centuries, Annis Pratt perceives in women's fiction distinctive elements of plot, characterization, image, and tone. She argues that women's fiction should be read as a mutually illuminative or interrelated field of texts reflecting feminine archetypes that are signals of a repressed tradition in conflict with patriarchal culture. Pratt suggests that the archetypal patterns in women's fiction provide a ritual expression containing the potential for the reader's personal transformation and that women's novels constitute literary variations on preliterary folk practices that are available in the realm of imagination even when they have long been absent from day-to-day life.

Archetypal patterns in women's fiction

Pratt, Annis

Harvester Press

Archetypal patterns endure because they give expression to perennial dilemmas submerged in the collective unconscious. Having examined more than 300 novels by both major and minor women writers over three centuries, Annis Pratt perceives in women's fiction distinctive elements of plot, characterization, image, and tone. She argues that women's fiction should be read as a mutually illuminative or interrelated field of texts reflecting feminine archetypes that are signals of a repressed tradition in conflict with patriarchal culture. Pratt suggests that the archetypal patterns in women's fiction provide a ritual expression containing the potential for the reader's personal transformation and that women's novels constitute literary variations on preliterary folk practices that are available in the realm of imagination even when they have long been absent from day-to-day life.

Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction (Midland Book)

Literature & Fiction

United States

Indiana University Press

Dancing with Goddesses: Archetypes, Poetry, and Empowerment

"Pratt offers here an excellent and thorough study of Medusa, Aphrodite, and Artemis.... An excellent study for students of myth, of modern literature, and of criticism (especially psychological, archetypal, and biographical criticism)." -- Choice
"Annis Pratt, with absorbing ability, blends oppositional ideas and factions into a brilliant discussion about meaning in literature, myth, and poetics. She creates an insightful structural analysis that references archetypalists, myth critics, feminist theologians, feminist neo-Jungians, and feminist archeologists. But it is her own sub-textual voice running under the words, her insistence that her inquiry be one of passionate intensity rather than one of unyielding codification, that ultimately causes her work to be truly original, truly valuable." -- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves
"Provides a mature and useful alternative to hegemonic Freudian and Lacanian approaches to literature and psychology and a significant feminism revision of Jungian thought." -- Estella Lauter
Pratt explores how female and male poets in England and North America respond to apatriarchal religious and mythological systems in four archetypes: Medusa, Aphrodite, Artemis, and bears.

History & Criticism

"Pratt offers here an excellent and thorough study of Medusa, Aphrodite, and Artemis.... An excellent study for students of myth, of modern literature, and of criticism (especially psychological, archetypal, and biographical criticism)." -- Choice"Annis Pratt, with absorbing ability, blends oppositional ideas and factions into a brilliant discussion about meaning in literature, myth, and poetics. She creates an insightful structural analysis that references archetypalists, myth critics, feminist theologians, feminist neo-Jungians, and feminist archeologists. But it is her own sub-textual voice running under the words, her insistence that her inquiry be one of passionate intensity rather than one of unyielding codification, that ultimately causes her work to be truly original, truly valuable." -- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves"Provides a mature and useful alternative to hegemonic Freudian and Lacanian approaches to literature and psychology and a significant feminism revision of Jungian thought." -- Estella LauterPratt explores how female and male poets in England and North America respond to apatriarchal religious and mythological systems in four archetypes: Medusa, Aphrodite, Artemis, and bears.

Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction

The Harvester Press

This first full-scale treatment of the early prose of Dylan Thomas demonstrates the unity of his total work. Pratt argues that the inward journey of the poetic imagination which is implicit in poetry is often explicit in prose. Her study of Thomas’ early prose alongside his early poetry helps to elucidate all of his writing.Pratt includes three appendices:  a chronology, a summary of the critics’ attitudes toward the problem of influence, and a bibliographical sketch of materials in the Parris surrealist magazine transition, which are paralleled in Thomas’ prose.

Dylan Thomas' early prose;: A study in creative mythology (Critical essays in modern literature)

University of Pittsburgh Press

This first full-scale treatment of the early prose of Dylan Thomas demonstrates the unity of his total work. Pratt argues that the inward journey of the poetic imagination which is implicit in poetry is often explicit in prose. Her study of Thomas’ early prose alongside his early poetry helps to elucidate all of his writing. Pratt includes three appendices: a chronology, a summary of the critics’ attitudes toward the problem of influence, and a bibliographical sketch of materials in the Parris surrealist magazine transition, which are paralleled in Thomas’ prose.

Dylan Thomas’ Early Prose: A Study in Creative Mythology (Critical Essays in Modern Literature)

British & Irish

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Books by Pratt, Annis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pratt, Annis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Archetypal patterns in women's fiction

Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction (Midland Book)

Dancing with Goddesses: Archetypes, Poetry, and Empowerment

Dancing with Goddesses: Archetypes, Poetry, and Empowerment

Archetypal Patterns in Women's Fiction

Dylan Thomas' early prose;: A study in creative mythology (Critical essays in modern literature)

Dylan Thomas’ Early Prose: A Study in Creative Mythology (Critical Essays in Modern Literature)